Page:My people stories of the peasantry of West Wales.djvu/27

 A FATHER IN SION vexation. Rachel developed fits; while hoeing turnips in the twilight of an afternoon she shivered and fell, her head resting in the water ditch that is alongside the hedge. In the morning Sadrach came that way with a load of manure.

“Rachel fach,” he said, “wake you up now. What will Martha say if you get ill?”

He passed on.

When he came back Rachel had not moved, and Sadrach drove away, without noticing the small pool of water which had gathered over the girl's head. Within an hour he came again, and said:

“Rachel, Rachel, wake you up. There's lazy you are.”

Rachel was silent. Death had come before the milking of the cows. Sadrach went to the end of the field and emptied his cart of the manure. Then he turned and cast Rachel’s body into the cart, and covered it with a sack, and 15